hello!
my attempt to the meaning:
Speak in circles could mean that you say a lot of things that don't make any sense, or you repeat again and again, without getting to any point.
In Spanish we would say "dar rodeos", but I don't know an equivalent in any other language.
Hope I'm right!
Good luck!

Google is the final arbiter --- "talk in circles" in quotations yields 28,000 hits, "speak in circles," 9,600 (very surprising to me, and perhaps to you), and "go around in circles" gets 67,000. But it turns out that "go around in circles means something much broader than just "talking:" to use a lot of time and effort trying to do something, without making any progress. The first two expressions are narrower than that.

I am very familiar with the phrase "going round in circles", in the context of a debate or discusssion, meaning that the protagonists are repeating the same points and not arriving at any conclusions.

I think I have also heard "talking in circles", meaning the same thing. I haven't heard of "speaking in circles" though. I think this is one of those instances where "speak" does not mean the same as "talk". If I heard "speaking in circles" I would imagine one individual, maybe addressing a group, coming back to the same point and never moving on. But "talking in circles" implies to me the circular discussion I've referred to above.

I would consider the possibility that when the author wrote "speaking in circles" s/he meant a group (or subgroup) of people standing facing each other in such a way that their body language excludes other people in the wider group (eg other people at the party) from joining in the conversation.

But I agree that it is not standard English usage or a familiar colloquialism.

The source (click) contains a number of other odd turns of phrase, including the use of "the police" to mean "the policeman" and "bicycler" (a non-word) to mean "cyclist"....

Click to expand...

I know this is a bit off topic, but now that you mention it: "bicycler" is a word in both OED and MWD---somebody must be using it. I could not find where a policeman was referred to as a police in the article.

I’m also familiar with the phrase "talking in circles" and this is how I use it. In the article, the phrase "speak in circles" seems to be used with this meaning. << --- >>

By the way, the biography of the author reads (translated from Chinese): About the author (Tim), from the United States, came to China in 2003, spent three years in Xinjiang and now lives in Beijing.

This is what I imagine when I hear "talk in circles", which phrase rings a distant bell in my head.

Click to expand...

Or better...
"You remind me of the babe."
"What babe?"
"The babe with the power."
"What power?"
"The power of voodoo."
"Who do?"
"You do."
"Do what?"
"Remind me of the babe."

Anyway, I've heard both "speaking in circles" and "talking in circles", which both mean to ramble illogically, speak without making a point, repetition in speaking, wasting everyone's time by speaking, speaking for a long period of time, etc. It's like "going in circles" but... with speech...

Because going in circles (literally) would waste time and effort, and while it seems like your making progress, you're not. So... it's the verbal version of that.